Santa's helper, aka Rotarian Jim Crow, who is resplendent in a festive red-and-white hat, beams broadly as he jangles his bucket in Fleet's high street.

There is no shortage of last-minute Christmas shoppers to drop in a coin or two and chat in the fine drizzle. "Despite the economy, they're still giving generously. The people here always do."

"Here" is the centre of the north-east Hampshire district of Hart: an area of picture-postcard villages dotting green rolling countryside, incorporating the small towns of Fleet, Yateley and Hook, and according to a report measuring quality of life, the most desirable place to live in Britain. However, according to the survey nowhere in the north of England, Scotland or Wales made the top 50.

The Halifax report took jobs, the housing market, education, health and crime into account, as well as weather, traffic flows and broadband access.

Toppling Elmbridge in Surrey to snatch the Quality of Life title, the study found that 95% of Hart's residents are in good health, and tend to enjoy incomes at 40% above the UK average. Its levels of crime are the lowest in Hampshire and its attractions include more than 1,000 listed buildings, and Fleet Pond – at 52 acres Hampshire's largest freshwater lake.It was Fleet Pond that laid the first foundation stones for Fleet, Hart's administrative capital. The birth of the railways, along with the Victorian gentry's penchant to skate on its frozen lake in winter, transformed the area.

Ease of commuter access has seen its population rise from around 9,000 in the 1980s to in excess of 90,000.

Crow attributes its charm to being "where urban sprawl ends and countryside begins". It's so green "that almost every tree you see in people's gardens has a preservation order on it".

For eight years the excellent rail links whisked this ex-army officer to his Ministry of Defence job in Whitehall in well under an hour.

It's pretty affluent – the station car park looks like a BMW dealer's forecourt. A glance at the window of estate agents Fine and Country prompts seven-figure property price envy, while in Vickery's opposite, £300,000 will buy a three-bed detached.

"It's more Londoney, but not London," said Mary Ryan, who has an upmarket wedding, party and retail business. She used to live in Dorset, but found it too "set in its ways". People in Hart were more adventurous.

For as long as Fleet has been a town, there has been a WC Baker & Sons ironmongers in its high street. This, according to locals, is another attraction – a traditional high street with individual shops, pubs and cafes alongside the main chains and supermarkets.

Geoff Baker, 65, is third generation. His grandfather opened the ironmongers in 1908. He'll sell one nail, the latest in kitchen appliances or regrind a spade. The queues out of the door of his Tardis-like shop indicate why it won the Which? Local Business award for the south-east. "The customers have got younger," he said, reflecting on 50 years behind the counter.

With two military bases, RAF Odiham and the Royal School of Military Engineering, nearby, "it's always been popular with retired army," he said. "But there are more families here now. The schools are very good."

A mile up the road the executive houses on the Elvetham Heath estate reportedly boast the highest average income per household of any in the UK.

More than half (27) of the top 50 most desirable places to live in the survey are in southern England, with a further 15 in eastern England. The only areas outside the south were Wychavon, Worcestershire; Rushcliffe, Nottinghamshire; Rutland; and North Kesteven in Lincolnshire. Nowhere in the north of England, Scotland or Wales made the list.

The survey found the highest weekly earnings in Kensington and Chelsea (£1,521) followed by the City of London (£1,239) and Westminster (£1,141).

Kensington and Chelsea also has the most unaffordable homes with typical prices 12.2 times that of local yearly earnings. Pendle, Lancashire, had the lowest at 3.5% followed by North Ayrshire in Scotland and Blaenau Gwent in Wales at 3.6. Average house prices in Hart are 6.3 times average local earnings.

The survey also found that employment was at its highest in Maidstone, Kent, with a rate of 84%.

The case for the north

The poet, playwright and Yorkshireman Ian McMillan expressed his "amazement" that not one northern district had made it into the top 50 in the Halifax Quality of Life Survey. "Maybe only half of the report came through on the fax?" McMillan said.

McMillan, born in Darfield, Barnsley, South Yorkshire, cited a string of northern towns he felt should have made the list, including Harrogate in North Yorkshire, Egremont in Cumbria, and Alnwick in Northumberland.

"I mean, Alnwick has got everything: it's got a lovely theatre, a brilliant fish and chip shop, and a wonderful cafe that serves toasted teacakes," he said. "How much more quality do you need? I would say Barnsley too – but the weather here's not so good."

The most northern area in the Halifax survey is North Kesteven, Lincolnshire, followed by Rushcliffe in Nottinghamshire and Rutland.

McMillan said: "It makes me want to get a new list done with just northern towns in it – perhaps we could get it done by a southern building society this time."